Our haunt opens up on Oct 12th this year and runs on prime nights of Fri and Sat for 3 weeks. This is the first time we will be running this early in Oct. We have a few places that will stuff our AWESOME 4x6 postcard flyers in bags when people make purchases. Is it to early to have those places start stuffing them in?

I think it is too early. People have a short memory. The ideal time is 7-14 days before your opening. This way people have it fresh in their mind. Unless it is a large festival or event, and you are trying to brand the name, then it is throwing money away. If you need printing, contact me. Sean @ pixelpushersinc.com

I think it is too early. People have a short memory. The ideal time is 7-14 days before your opening. This way people have it fresh in their mind. Unless it is a large festival or event, and you are trying to brand the name, then it is throwing money away. If you need printing, contact me. Sean @ pixelpushersinc.com

What he said.

Now, if you want to catch'em early, then create facebook profiles for your icon characters and have them post about their antics all year round, and then that way your growing customer base keeps the haunt on their radar.

I agree that facebook and also twitter are great channels to keep people interested in what is going on with your haunt. If you have a main character, then it is a great idea to give them a twitter page, and fans love when they can engage with the character throughout the year. Also if you gain a big following that can lead to a lot of fun different contests and things that you can do to have them share photos and content to their friends and family.

Honestly I think that the internet is a huge avenue for haunters to use and can be more effective than print ads that you pass out to stores, etc. That is just me though.

Facebook is a great thing to advertise your haunt. Our facebook has over 13,000 fans. facebook.com/MassacreHaunt. However, don't post too much, because then people will stay to "HIDE" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" or just "UNLIKE" your page. Less is more.

Hey guys any insights as to how to build that FB fan base? I am using all of the usual methods, and aside from advertising on FB (which will be in the budget for next year) we are doing all the "right" things, but the fan base is growing ever so slowly. I need to ramp this up considerably in the next month to feel comfortable.

Contests for sharing images, liking images, and that sort of thing really can start to draw more attention to your facebook page.

One thing that I did for my horrid reviews page (www.horridreviews.com) I was working to do a facebook ad, and when i was in the middle of getting it all set up, I stopped, and then a few days later I got an email from Facebook offering me a $50 advertising gift card that was pretty cool. So I set up my ad with an incentive to let people know that they could win movies that I review and that sort of thing. I got 400+ likes from that in a week. And I had only set my budget to a 5 dollars a day. So the facebook ads can work, but you just have to be sure that you set your budget right (like adwords on Google) so that you don't throw all of your money away at once and have found no true value from them "liking" your page other than them just following you. just be sure you have an ultimate goal for what you want them to do. Then you can start seeing where your advertising money is going.

One thing that I found success in as well is using a Meme generator (just google search it if you dont know what a meme is) which I used to create an image that was relevant to my content. Something witty or funny and asked people to share it. The one who shared the most was able to get a free movie from me. I got in my last one 80+ shares which is a great amount of visibility for my site and what I am trying to accomplish.